


A Well-Oiled Machine

by Sweaters (Guhs)



Series: Pale Danvivor [7]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Brief depiction of violence, Danse is a moody tinman, Danse prolly has a really hot physique I'm just saying, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Heavy with a Happy Ending ;), Light Angst, M/M, Mild Blood, No I'm kidding it really is just a regular happy ending no hummers or otherwise, anyway here's wonderwall, very brief mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guhs/pseuds/Sweaters
Summary: Danse is having trouble coming to terms with himself after finding out the truth. Nate is having a hard time getting through to him.Ft. The Handmade Garage and more obnoxious music lines





	A Well-Oiled Machine

Danse is a robot, Shaun has made a child clone of himself that is now living in Sanctuary, the Brotherhood has teamed up with the Minutemen to lead a unified front for the wasteland post-Institute destruction, the world is still irradiated and now there are killer robots everywhere from some guy named The Mechanist.

 _And that’s what you missed on_ ~~_“Glee”_ ~~ _“_ Adventures of the Proverbial Chosen One. _”_

So there upon a centuries-old bed with a rusting boxspring laid Nathan, staring at the molting ceiling and allowing his thoughts to drift away to the gentle sounds of mutated crickets, winds blowing radioactive dirt across the landscape, and ex-Paladin Danse viciously beating a sandbag hung from a chain across the house.

Truly an authentic post-apocalyptic lullaby.

It was an improvement, to be sure. For weeks after the bunker, after the confrontation, Danse would hardly even speak. Wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep. _‘What’s the point? I don’t need it. It’s all fake. All of it.’_ But eventually, the very synthetic hunger pains and exhaustion got the better of him, and things slowly began to change. Unnerving as it was, Nate would gladly accept the sounds of violent one-sided combat over the most abnormal hunger strike he’d ever experienced any day of the week. If weeks mattered anymore.

Shaun was… a different story. Danse hated him from the beginning, still didn’t like him, and… well, Nate would be a liar to say he had fully come around to the idea that his son, his sixty-year-old son, had cloned himself in child form, and had then hoisted that clone upon his father after the battle at the Institute. He had a very hard time getting used to it all. It was his son, his Shaun, who looked so much like his mother and yet, so much like _him_. He had the right pitch of Boston and a little bit of upstate. He had some of the same tics. It was crazy. Yet, he was a machine, sleeping soundly in a bed just across the hall. Maybe it was a double standard to see Danse no differently and yet see this child as a manmade object, but part of him could empathize with those who felt… strangely about the creations. No bad. Not intolerant. Just… a little bit off.

_God, this sucks some major ass._

The good ex-Paladin had been going at it for at least two hours now. With that in mind, Nate pulled back the blanket and, instantly enveloped in a clingwrap combination of radiation heat, actual heat and godless humidity, he set off toward their little lean-to just across the living room.

And there he was, in all his glory. Sweaty, a little breathless, and completely rigid. There were better environments in which Nate would have preferred to see this state. But _God_ did he look driven. _Who is he picturing that sandbag as?_ Before Nate had a moment to wonder if it was himself, he spoke up.

“Danse-” _PUNCH, PUNCH._ “Dan-” **PUNCH,** _PUNCH, PUNCH PUNCH._ “D-” **PUNCH!** A moment. Heavy breathing. Nate hadn’t realized Danse wasn’t wearing gloves or tape; where his hands had met the bag, little spots of red were seeping through the cloth.

“Fuck, what are you doing?” The man whipped around, startled, on edge. Eyes went to his bloodied, bruised hands before Nate snatched one, greeted by the sound of rugged hissing. “Why- where’s your tape? Some rubber? Anything? This looks bad, Danse. You might need stitches.” Heavy breathing, hissing, nonverbal fussing. Really, a regular Friday night these days.

“It doesn’t matter. The blood’s not real. The skin isn’t real. Hell, even the pain isn’t real. None of it is.”  
“I’m getting real fucking tired of this self-destructive attitude of yours, Danse. Jesus Christ.” Nate all but threw the bloodied appendage back at Danse’s side; he used his newly freed hand to violently point toward the shitty old loveseat by the workbench. “Sit.”

“Nate, I don’t-”

“ _NOW,_ asshole.” And he sat. Nate always did like to call Danse the golden retriever of the Commonwealth. Limitlessly loyal and obedient to a goddamn fault.  
As Danse sat there, no doubt wallowing in his own pit of inner turmoil and considering all the different ways he expected this night to go, Nate rattled through the workbench. They kept a medkit around here somewhere -- had to. He’d sliced his hand open one too many goddamn times working on his power armor to _not_. “Uh… a-ha! Got it.” He turned, he kneeled. With this pose, he could think of at least two other things he’d rather be doing. Yet, here they were.

“Nathan, you don’t need to do this. It’s-”

“If you say it’s pointless one more time I’m going to knock your teeth in, Danse.” Nate had a stern mother. Sweet, but stern. He knew how to pull a look when he needed to, and Danse knew exactly when to back off as a result. _Damn, I really_ did _become my parents._

Out came the disinfectant. Nate was more merciless with this than he planned to be and cradled the affected hand close to his chest as Danse tensed, like he immediately planned to punch the burn away or some similar Brotherhood-themed sentiment. “Sorry. But, d’you see? If this doesn’t make you-- _human_ , a living person, what does?”

“The circuitry that makes up my brain, I’d imagine.”

Away with the disinfectant, in with the cleaning. “Alright, don’t make me crack open your head and test that theory, tinman.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t call you that anymore.” Goddammit, Nathan. You fucking donkey.  
“No, it’s… actually kind of funny now.”  
“Funny?”  
“Yes. A… what would you call it? ‘Self-fulfilling prophecy’. I’ve gone from being heartless to actually being made of metal, to a degree. It’s really quite comical.”

Surprisingly… insightful. Probably the most non-hateful thing the man might’ve said about himself to date.

“You’re right, it is.” Nate didn’t laugh as he wrapped the bandage around Danse’s hand and switched to the other one. “You know I don’t call you ‘tin man’ because I think you’re heartless. Right?”

“... You didn’t?”  
“No, dumbass. I called you tinman because you’re always in metal armor. Hence, _tinman_.”

A long, wavering silence, only barely interrupted by the muted groan as more disinfectant was applied.

“Oh.”  
“Did you really think that all this time, Danse?”  
“Everyone thought it was true. I just thought you were the only one with enough guts to say it. You always were the only person completely transparent with me.”

Troubling. After all of this, everything they had been through, this past couple of years. All this time, Danse thought it was an insult. Even after they crossed the divide from friendship to-- well, something else. This man really was in the lead for ‘Most Self-Hating Man on Earth’.  
Still… it brought to mind another thing. A more pleasant association with his character. Cambridge Police Station, late October.

“You remember the first time we met, at the station? You were being overrun by ghouls, two dead-”  
“Two dead, a hoard of ghouls, and you said to me: ‘Morning, I’m Nathan Geller from Boston Pest Control. Sorry I’m late; that’ll be $600.’ I had never been so disrespected.”

Nate let out the most unattractive cackle then, having to briefly pause his ministrations. “You looked-- oh my God. You looked so _slighted_. Like- like I’d just insulted your entire bloodline.” Hissing and deafening silence were quickly replaced by laughter. Genuine, real, the most real it had been in weeks. Despite the blood and the bruising and the heavy air of reality, they were happy, if only for a few seconds.

Fifteen minutes later, they were both sore with reminiscent joy and the best medicine they could get their hands on these days. Nate didn’t have a doubt in his mind that this world could turn around with just a little bit more laughter.

“You feeling any better, tinman?” Putting more stress on the affectionate affect of the epithet, Nate leaned over, hit a switch. Some tweaking with the rabbit ears and the lovely lullaby of local Diamond City Radio came crooning through the speakers.  
“Hard to say. Yes. But I’m also not sure what ‘better’ looks like from here. Not when I’m… like this.”

Another sigh, but Nate narrowly avoided whacking his companion over the head. It was a plight, to be sure. A hurdle that was hard to jump. But it didn’t sit right with him -- that someone so bold and confident and self-assured as Danse should be so at odds with himself.  
“Have you ever heard of the philosopher René Descartes? Do they have philosophy out here in the wild, wild wasteland?”  
“Philosophy, yes. I haven’t heard that name, no.”  
“There’s one quote that was widely attributed to him, back in my time. ‘Cogito, ergo sum’, in Latin. ‘I think, therefore I am.’ What do you make of that?"  
  
_Friends all over know I’m trying_  
_To forget about how much I care for you_

“I don’t know.”  
  
_It’s all over but the dreaming_  
  
“It’s a pretty thought. But… existing doesn’t make me more or less human. I am what I am, and what I am is a machine.”  
  
_Poor little dreams that keep trying to come true_

“I don’t know where I’ll be in thirty years. I don’t know what this world will be like, what will grow and if I will grow along with it. I don’t if I’ll ever grow old, if I’ve even aged at all, where my memories end and the simulation begins. How long I might have gone without ever realizing something was wrong.”

 _It’s all over but the crying_  
_And nobody’s crying but me_

“If it helps, I will always be over 210 years older than you. No matter what.”

A little cracked smile, patched over just as quick as it erupted. “Yes, but you will continue to age. You’re organic matter, a living person. I’m just a very well-oiled machine, and I have no place in nature. I’m an abomination.”

“No, you’re not, Danse. Not being born from a woman doesn’t make you any less of a person, of a human being, than me or anyone else. What makes you human is quantifiable: what you do, what you think, and what you feel. You’ve dedicated your life to making this place, this _shithole_ , better, safer, and more forgiving, whatever that meant. You think there is still good in this world, and that someday, the world may see some kind of peace again, and you’ve been more than willing to put life and limb on the line for that time and time again. What you feel -- I can’t speak for that, but I do know you’re not heartless. This past couple of years, everything we’ve dealt with… I know enough to see that you are every bit as whole as I am.”

 _It’s all over but the crying_  
_And I can’t get over crying over you_

Barely seeping through the bandages, blood. Running as red as anyone else’s. Danse had his eyes firmly focused on this, on the words hanging in the air, the meaning which threatened to suck the air out of any knee-jerk blanket statement he was currently concocting in that _circuitry_ of his. Nate had managed to talk him out of killing himself in that bunker, but now neither of them could figure out how.  
  
“You’ve made a good point, soldier. Let’s see how it holds up.” The slightest hint of a grin that showed this was far from resolved, but heading in the right direction. It remained even as Danse trained his eyes, those insanely human, absolutely beautiful eyes, on Nate. “What will become of us if it turns out I will never grow old? If I won’t, and if… Shaun’s…” A sour grimace. “If _Shaun_ won’t?”

“If you think I wouldn’t jump at the chance to have an immortal partner and son, you’re dead wrong. You’d always be young and as beautiful as always. Shaun would never know any different, he… may not know that there’s any potential to even grow. I could deal with aging if it meant that the people I cared for most would have the time to find something that truly fulfilled them, or go out on their own terms.” A shift. Nate had always been comfortable with his own mortality. Well… ever since he enlisted and deployed for the first time. At some point, you just accept that what will happen will happen whether you’re ready for it or not, and it’s just a matter of whether you died well, or died wishing that you weren’t.

“I suppose the better question is, will you be able to handle watching me grow old, in the event that you don’t? I don’t think I’d make a pretty old man. I’m barely a pretty adult.” A proper string of laughter. Music to Nate’s ears, more than the radio he’d grown to love.

“Now who’s being ridiculous?” A new smile came, and it stayed a while. Nate couldn’t imagine what was going on in that head of his, underneath that messy black hair that could put any prewar actor to shame, bar none. Ex-Paladin Danse was never a man keen on touch, but by the way he turned two centimeters toward Nate, he knew it wasn’t far from his mind. “I’d follow you to the ends of this cursed earth, Nate. Young or old, ‘pretty’ or not. I’ll stay with you for as long as you’ll have me.”

_To illustrate his last remark_

Eye contact. This man’s focus was immaculate, and while it normally gave Nate shivers enough by itself, now seemed… especially chilly.

 _Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark  
  
_“Former Paladin Danse, is this a proposal?” The surprise was palpable. He never thought he’d see the day that Danse looked more shocked than himself. The man was nothing if not deliberate.  
  
_What did they do_  
Just when everything looked so dark?  
  
A rigid back, undoing all the good work that intense internal strife had done. Eyes straight ahead, wandering, a little unsure. “I- I’m not... “

 _Man, they said we better_  
  
“I suppose it is.” Eyes, blue on near-black.  
  
_Ac-cen-tuate the positive_  
  
“Then… I’ll have you until you’re sick of me.”  
  
_Eliminate the negative_  
  
“I don’t think that’s a possibility, soldier.”  
  
_Latch on to the affirmative  
  
_“I think you mean… ‘Sentinel’, Former Paladin Danse.”  
  
_Don’t mess with Mister In-Between_  
  
“Are you pulling rank on me, Nathan?”  
“I think I am.”  
  
_No, don’t mess with Mister In-Between_  
  
“Good.”  
  
_Do you hear me?_

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, my dudes, I'm back for oNe NiGhT oNlY. Lmao probably not but I had the little spark to write so I figured I might as well churn a lil smth smth out. I'm going under to have 4 impacted teeth removed in like 12 hours so I wanted to get this done and over with so the local anesthetic doesn't kill me while I'm under stress of failure to perform. :) I did like 0 editing to this so I'm sorry that it's extremely shitty.
> 
> Once again dedicated to my loyal broski Howard Risdale.
> 
> I can't promise any sort of consistent upload times, but I can say that I do genuinely want to keep writing, so even though it may not seem like it, I'm still in the game just a little bit. I just have the shitty controller and I'm really bad at playing even if I didn't. :))
> 
> So enjoy! Or don't! I'm not the boss of you now, and I'm not so big.


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